


it's always colder on your own

by shermanerm



Category: Let's Play Cyberpunk Red - Polygon (Web Series)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Disordered Eating, Hypothermia, Multi, Nightmares, No beta we suffer like degenerates, Not Really Character Death, Platonic Cuddling, Vang0 Vang0 needs a hug, Vang0 Vang0 vs. human emotions, can be read as ot3 if you squint, hypothermia as a plot device, you don't have to squint very hard tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:07:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26398381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shermanerm/pseuds/shermanerm
Summary: Night City is hit by a surprise snow storm. Vang0, Burger and Dasha cope the best ways they know how.
Relationships: Vang0 Bang0 & Burger Chainz & Dapper Dasha
Comments: 8
Kudos: 38





	it's always colder on your own

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the PCPR discord, to Wiley and to Mory for being excited about this enough for me to finish it. Title is from This December by Ricky Montgomery (and it has some very Vang0-focused lyrics in the chorus >:3)

Vang0 Bang0 was not prepared for snow. Then again, it sounded like most people in Night City were not prepared for snow, so he didn't feel too bad about sitting huddled against his tower, every blanket he owned wrapped around him. He thanked whatever was out there that he hadn't replaced the sub-par fan in his PC. The warmth was nice against his back, a comforting contrast to the frigid air in his studio.

Vang0 dozed off and on for the first morning, finally waking in the afternoon with a pain in his neck and a rumbling stomach. He cursed softly, stretching out his skinny body as much as he was able without subjecting himself to more bitter cold, then waddled over to his kitchenette, still wrapped in blankets.

The fridge held a few of Burger's juice boxes, and the cupboard was empty but for one unopened bottle of some sort of sauce in the very back. Vang0 cursed again, louder, and decided to ignore his hunger until he figured out a better food plan than "walk out to get Thai and freeze to death."

He hobbled back over to his desk, logging into Jumptrash to check on everyone. Apparently the power had gone out five miles north of his apartment. A harsh shiver wracked his body at the thought. The PC and the range weren't much in terms of heating, but the thought of a long night without either... Vang0 didn't relish the idea.

He was considering the merits of wrapping all his blankets around him to go outside when someone knocked on his door. He hobbled over to the door, accidentally headbutting the aged wood when he tried to look through the peephole. Finally, after cursing a few times and almost slipping on the innermost blanket, Vang0 finally looked through the peephole.

Oh, it was Burger. Nice.

Vang0 unlocked the door and waved his friend inside. Burger stepped inside quickly, and Vang0 belatedly noticed he was shivering pretty bad. Snow fell off of Burger's shoulder, landing with a muted slap on the tile, and Vang0 winced in sympathy. Burger looked like a walking weather warning, which could not possibly be comfortable, especially considering the jaw and the eye and the lack of appropriate snow gear.

Vang0 tried to herd his friend over to the warm spot by his tower, but only succeeded in tripping over the blanket around him, squawking indignantly as he fell on his ass. Above him Burger chuckled, not unkindly. Then Burger shivered so bad  _ he _ almost lost balance, and Vang0 scrambled back up, pushing his friend to sit down at his desk.

"Vest," Vang0 muttered, and Burger obliged his unasked question, taking off the soaked denim and handing it to him. Vang0 swapped the vest for the blankets, shivering himself at the feel of the wet fabric. Jesus, even inside it was cold as shit, he could only imagine how much colder Burger was with wet clothes.

He rushed to the bathroom to hang the vest off the showerhead, making a detour to grab an oversized t-shirt (funny enough, one of Burger's that Vang0 hadn't given back yet) and sweatpants on his way back. He returned to see Burger sitting exactly where Vang0 had left him, looking down at the blankets sitting near-useless in his lap. When Vang0 stepped closer, Burger looked up with a decidedly dazed expression. The cold was definitely getting to him.

"Okay, actually, you go change in the bathroom, I need to look some shit up to make sure you don't go hypothermic." Vang0 shooed Burger to the bathroom before settling in his desk chair the way he usually did, sideways, legs crossed over the armrest. He typed quickly, counting the seconds before Burger returned. What if he fell in the bathroom and Vang0 couldn't hear him? What if his condition was worse than Vang0's meagre supplies could fix?

Well, at least he knew the answer to the last question. He would call Dasha if it got that bad. Or should he call Dasha now, before the shitshow got even shittier?

The bathroom door squeaked as Burger opened it, looking a little bit better in his half-borrowed pajamas. His hair was still wet, and Vang0 almost told him to grab a towel while he was over there, but then he saw the fine tremble in Burger's limbs. "Let's get you in bed, okay? You'll be warmer there."

Burger nodded and shuffled over to the bed, and Vang0 helped wrap him in a few blankets before Burger laid down and closed his eyes. He was still shivering intermittently, which Vang0 wasn't super happy with, but it was better than the alternative of him not shivering at all as his body shut down or whatever, so Vang0 took what he could get.

He turned to head to the bathroom when Burger grabbed his hand. "Vang0, I'm uh, I'm real sorry to ask, but. Stay with me?"

Vang0 felt something in his ribs constrict almost painfully. "I'll be right back. I just need to grab you a towel, your hair's still wet."

Burger nodded softly as he dropped his hand from Vang0's, practically nuzzling Vang0's pillow, and Vang0 made a quick retreat to the bathroom.

Vang0 reached into the nearly barren linen cabinet, grabbing the softer of the two towels. On his way back to the bed, he grabbed his agent off the desk, intent on continuing his research.

Vang0 faltered just before he got to the bed, uncertain of what he should do. "Hey Burg, you still awake?"

The only thing he could see of Burger from that angle was his hair, but he could still tell when Burger nodded. "So, um, I looked up how best to help you get warm and the Night City Clinic site said, well, uh, body heat? So that would mean, um. I would need to-"

Burger interrupted him by lifting the blankets, shivering harder as he offered Vang0 the other side of the bed. Vang0 climbed in, grateful that Burger knew that he was getting at. Burger dropped the blankets around them before pulling the top layer over their heads, and wasn't this cozy? Just hanging out in bed with your buddy, offering platonic, possibly life-saving cuddles.

Just another Tuesday, really.

Despite the unnameable emotion rising in Vang0's throat, he shifted closer to Burger, plastering himself to his friend's side. Burger's shivers were already abating, little by little, and Vang0 felt his panic calm for the first time since Burger had stumbled through his door. He could feel the tension leaving Burger's body as he finally encountered warmth, and Vang0 felt a thrill go through the part of him that didn't balk entirely at things like emotions.

Vang0 let his eyes droop but stayed awake, playing quiet games on his agent while Burger slept beside him. He contemplated texting Dasha what happened, waffling between  _ don't bother her _ and  _ how mad will she be if she finds out later _ , until he made himself think about how it would feel if Burger was in trouble, life threatening trouble, and Dasha knew and didn't tell him.

He texted Dasha.

VB: hey you up

DD: I'm not going out in this weather for a booty call, Vang0, what do you want.

VB: ha, no. so like

VB: burger came over

DD: Oh, so you're covered then. 

VB: also no. he was really cold. i think it was mild hypothermia

DD: I'm coming over.

VB: i mean, it's fine now

VB: i'm warming him up

VB: not like that

VB: technically like that

VB: dasha he's okay

[Message not received.]

VB: did you just turn your agent off

[Message not received.]

VB: fuckin really dash

[Message not received.]

Someone knocked on the door.

Vang0 slipped out of bed, hissing at the feel of the cold floor under his feet as he hurried over to the door to unlock it without checking the peephole. He could feel Dasha's razor-sharp presence on the other side of the door, anyway, and he didn't think the world was going to be so shitty as to have someone burgle or kill him while Night City suffered from a fucking blizzard.

He was still relieved when he saw Dasha's face. Then he registered the bounty of canvas bags in her arms, and relief turned to bemused confusion. "What'd you do, rob a grocery store on the way over?"

Dasha glared at him, face still flushed with cold as she removed her heavy winter coat and, realizing that he didn't have anywhere to hang it, sighed and dropped it in the corner. "No, Vang0, I bought these things, because I know you don't have anything in your cupboards and I didn't want all of us to starve if we get snowed in." Without ceremony, she began unpacking her bags onto Vang0's counter. There was. A lot of food. More food than Vang0 thought they would need for one night, but then again he had once watched Burger start and finish two pizzas in the span of an hour, so what did he know.

Vang0 opened his mouth for a retort, then closed it when he realized everything that came out of his mouth was going to either be dumb or wrong. "I have sauce," he muttered after a second. At least, he was pretty sure it was sauce.

"One cannot live on sauce alone," Dasha responded with heavy gravitas, "although that certainly explains how skinny you are."

"Fuck off," Vang0 griped reflexively, and Dasha quirked a quick, mean smile at him. He was glad they were kind of sort of friends.

Then her smile dropped, and for the first time, Vang0 could see how tired Dasha was. She was always put together around other people, even dressed down as she usually was for work. Vang0 didn't think he had ever seen her lose that polished edge until now, standing there in a pair of heavy flannel pajamas, smart boots crusted with melting snow, hair escaping the loose bun at the nape of her neck. She looked- normal, like she'd had a long day and was looking at a longer night, frazzled and human. And she was letting him see her like this, staring unrepentantly back at him, eyes yelling  _ say something about it, motherfucker. _

He didn't. He couldn't, he knew he looked the same. The only difference was she hid it better.

"How is he?" Dasha glanced over to the Burger-shaped lump on the bed as she leaned down to pull her boots off, left then right, disgustingly graceful in the most mundane moments.

"He's okay. Getting warmer, I guess. I would check his temp, but I don't have a thermometer." Vang0 tried to sound confident, but he was still worried over Burger. Sure, his shivering had stopped, mostly, but wasn't that a sign of worsening hypothermia? What if he was deluding himself while his friend was dying in his bed? 

The panic that had left him before came back, with friends. Oh god, Burger was dying-

Dasha touched his shoulder and he cut his gaze back to her. "He'll be okay," she murmured to him. "He hasn't survived this long just to let a little snow take him."

Vang0 nodded but said nothing as he went to check on Burger. He needed- something. He wasn't sure what would stop the feeling of weight crushing his chest, but he thought checking on Burger might help.

Burger looked a little better, but he was still shivering off and on, so Vang0 glanced back at Dasha, who was putting a variety of foodstuffs back into one of the smaller bags. "I'm gonna-"

Dasha nodded at him and he got into the bed, curving himself around Burger. He sought out Burger's hands with his, clasping them firmly. He let himself smooth his thumb over Burger's knuckles rhythmically as he listened to Dasha putter around his kitchenette, putting food away into his empty cupboards. Vang0 closed his eyes and let himself doze for just a second.

He woke to Dasha gently shaking his shoulder. "Whuzzat?"

"I need you to get on his other side, I'm not climbing over both of you." Despite the firmness in her words, Dasha's eyes held a softness that was less unfamiliar than Vang0 expected.

Then Vang0 actually registered what she said, and he nodded drowsily. "Mmkay," he mumbled out as he stretched, catlike. He sleepily examined Burger's large form in his bed, trying to figure out the best way to get to the other side of him, before he nodded and slung his body over Burger's chest. Burger slept on underneath him, and with a minimum of injury or mortification from climbing his friend, Vang0 landed on the other side. Dasha only laughed a little bit as she slid into the spot he'd vacated, which Vang0 supposed was kind of her.

Vang0 felt his eyes sliding back closed when he heard a mumbled "love you guys," but he was dreaming before he could hear Dasha whispering for Burger to go back to sleep.

* * *

He opens his eyes to see snowflakes, just,  _ right _ in front of his face. For a moment he examines the beautiful fractals, enamoured with them until he breathes in and the air freezes his lungs. The snow is everywhere, and for the first time he understands what people mean when they use the word  _ blanketed _ . The world is covered in a white, freezing, deadly quilt, and he is the only thing not completely obscured by snow as far as he can see.

He gets up, slowly and painfully, clothes cracking and crunching as he moves. How long has he been out here? Where's Dasha? Where's-

There's a plume of strawberry blonde hair poking out of the snow twenty feet to his left. He stumbles toward it on numb legs, heart in his throat.

He stumbles and falls over something just before he makes it there, and it's as he's laying on it that he realizes it's a leg, wrapped in denim and ending in a familiar scuffed steel toed boot.

He can feel his eyes prickling with tears, the only real feeling in his numb body as he crawls the final stretch toward Burger's head. He scoops snow out of the way, digging down and down until he sees skin paler than it should be, colorless in a way that has him keening denial even as his hands shake with the truth of it.

Still he works, shovels until he's uncovered Burger's face, and he wants to wail, wants the world to know the anguish that he is in, that this man was taken not by a blaze of glory, not by some villain he can defeat in Burger's honor, but by a fucking natural disaster.

Vinny sits next to the body of his closest friend and screams.

* * *

Vang0 opened his eyes to darkness. He panicked for a moment, caught in the afterimages of the nightmare that woke him up, until he registered that the weight on his chest wasn't the metaphorical kind. Burger had turned in his sleep and slung his arm across Vang0's torso.

Relief washed through Vang0, chasing the fading images of his dream. There had been something about snow, but it was gone, and all that was left was the residual anxiety from the events of the night. He turned, folding himself further into Burger's embrace as he felt sleep gently tug at him. He ignored the call for the moment, reaching under the pillow for his agent and checking Jumptrash.

A few people were continuing as normal, but most of the conversation in the forums were about the freak storm, how there was supposedly more snow on the way, and how more people had lost power overnight. Including, Vang0 noted with dawning dread as he read one intrepid user's search for an open coffeeshop, businesses in his neighborhood.

He realized that, while he had originally assumed that Dasha had turned his monitors off before she'd slipped into bed, he remembered that at least one light had been on when she'd told him to move. Fuck.

"Dasha," Vang0 hissed. "You awake?"

There was no answer, and Vang0 sighed. He didn't want to get out of the bed, back out into the frigid cold of the studio, but he needed to know if they had power. At least he didn't have any unsaved work to mourn. Vang0 tried to slide out of the end of the bed, but Burger's arm tightened around him before he could make it far.

"Burger," Vang0 whispered, tapping at his friend's forearm wrapped securely around his chest. "Burg, I gotta get up."

Burger pulled him in closer, smushing his face into the crown of Vang0's head. "Mmmsleep," he mumbled eloquently.

Vang0 moved on from tapping to lightly shaking, but Burger was deep asleep again and didn't respond. He grumbled as he tried to slide out of Burger's grip, but Burger's hand was now tangled in Vang0's loose sleep shirt, and he couldn't get out of it without losing his shirt to the cause. He considered his options as he listened to Dasha's gentle snores on Burger's other side.

Vang0 sighed and began the arduous task of sliding both out of Burger's grip and out of his shirt. It took a not inconsiderable amount of effort before Vang0 was free and also freezing, standing shirtless in the unheated room.

He rushed over to his box of clothes and pulled out a sweatshirt, hissing as the cold fabric further chilled him. He shivered as he made his way over to his tower, holding out a faint hope that he was wrong, and the power was on, and everything was fine.

That hope was dashed when his monitor failed to light up, and Vang0 muttered a curse. 

"Did the power go out?"

Vang0 jumped before he realized it was Burger that spoke. "Yeah, um, it probs happened about an hour ago, according to a few forum members."

Burger nodded, glowing optic moving up and down, before he yawned and asked sleepily "y'comin back to bed?"

Vang0 opened his mouth and paused. Something about this felt different than laying down next to Burger to keep him warm; it felt like Burger was asking him to  _ come back to bed _ . Like existing in the same bed, limbs tangled and sleep-warm, was a thing they usually did.

Vang0 didn't mind the idea. He did, however, mind freezing in his own apartment with no heat. "I think we might need to wake up Dasha to tell her about the outage," he said through a yawn.

"I  _ am _ awake, because neither of you are quiet." Dasha didn't sound mad about that, Vang0 noted - just stubbornly fond. "And I would like to sleep a  _ little _ bit more before we have to commute through an ice age."

Vang0 snorted in amusement as her tone turned derisive, then took a few moments to consider the bed. "How do I even get back on? I don't think there's room, you both have more leg than should be legally allowed, I'm just gonna-"

"Oh, I can just-," Burger sat up and leaned over, and before Vang0 could even realize what was happening, he was half lifted, half dragged onto the bed. He kept his flailing to a minimum, very aware that he would most likely hit Dasha, and he wouldn't survive the night if he did.

Burger settled him in his previous spot, and Vang0 was glad the lights were off, before he realized that Burger could in fact see his flaming red face with his left eye. He didn't know what to say in response to being essentially tossed into a bed with his two closest friends, now that there was no life-saving going on, so Vang0 flashed his customary hand signals at Burger before laying down fully. He was still tired, after all, despite the little burst of adrenaline he had received from being lifted.

Vang0 closed his eyes and listened to Dasha and Burger slowly going quieter. Sooner than he expected, he slipped back into sleep, and dreamt of nothing much at all.

* * *

Vang0 woke to the smell of bacon, which was unusual. The sizzle of something cooking reached his ears slowly, like the air had also frozen in the night, or like his ears were a recalcitrant machine slow to reboot. Based on Burger's absence, Vang0 assumed he was the one in his kitchenette, unless there was a very nice burglar. He was pretty sure he'd heard a drama about that recently, some sort of gentleman robber plotline that was way too into the 20's aesthetic for him personally, but the main dude's voice had been familiar, maybe he was one of the music streamers that...

He let his thoughts wander like that in the dark, connecting ephemeral mental tangents to each other in an effort to occupy time. His agent was running low on battery and he didn't want to spend the rest of its life on the inevitable timesuck of moderating Jumptrash, though it almost certainly needed it right then.

He broke less than five minutes later, panicking briefly because his agent wasn't under his pillow, before he adjusted his position and realized it was poking into his side. He checked the temperature and time briefly (way too fucking cold, and still a little early), then turned to the forum.

More people were out of power, a few people were providing tips on how to keep warm, and that poor son of a bitch from the night before was still looking for a coffeeshop. After making sure no-one was being an unacceptable level of dickbag, Vang0 let his agent fall onto the bed, screen lighting up the foot and a half radius around it. In the dim light from his device, he could see that Burger had in fact left the bed, but Dasha was still sleeping, facing the blue-tinted light.

She looked younger in her sleep, snoring lightly into the other end of Vang0's long pillow, and he tried to imagine her looking this peaceful while awake. He failed, which worried him a little bit, but then she was opening her eyes, making direct eye contact with him.

A weird part of Vang0 wanted to hide his face and pretend he hadn't been looking, but instead he picked up his agent and mumbled a quick "morning."

Less light hit Dasha's face, but he could still see her well enough to be surprised by the small, sleepy, genuine smile she flashed at him in response. "Morning, Vang0," she responded, and he could feel his face getting red. He didn't understand why he was so flustered, really, it was totally normal for him to be waking up next to his cohort that he still wasn't sure really liked him all that much, despite the smile and the comforting words from the night before. Totally normal.

As his brain worked through that convoluted sentence, Dasha slipped out of the blankets with a suaveness that Vang0 was always jealous of, maneuvering herself around his little studio to the kitchenette. Vang0 let himself follow after he finished his feat of mental acrobatics.

Closer to the kitchenette, Vang0 realized that Burger wasn't using his actual stove, which wouldn't have worked without power, but a small portable burner with an attached gas canister. It looked vintage in a bad way, blue enameled metal dented and developing dust around the corners, but apparently it worked well enough to cook on, judging by the piles of food Burger was depositing onto three mismatched plates. "Oh, good morning guys, how'd y'all sleep?"

Without prompting, Vang0 went to collect silverware while Dasha grabbed what looked like an old LED lantern from the counter. She began cranking the handle of the lantern rapidly, and the room slowly filled with light. "I slept fine, how are you feeling?"

Burger smiled at her brightly, looking like he hadn't been hypothermic the night before. "Oh I'm feeling fine, maybe a little achy around the jaw and the eye, but it's fine, nothin' to worry about."

They sat down and ate quickly, mostly silent apart from some remarks about how good the food was (Burger flushed and ducked his head, smiling wide from the praise), and Vang0 remarking over some of the entries on Jumptrash (at one point causing Dasha to let out a honk of a laugh, which was incredibly funny and made the whole mess of a snow storm worth it in Vang0's opinion).

After the last of their breakfast was gone, Dasha gave the lantern a few cranks and turned to them. "We should go to my apartment," Dasha said decisively. "I have heat and power and, no offense Vang0, a better couch."

"None taken." Vang0 stretched his arms up, feeling better than he had in a while. "Found that on the street downstairs, so at least it gets points for being free."

Dasha's face contorted into a comically large grimace but she didn't respond, and Vang0 went to his boxes to grab a few sets of clothes.

They got ready quickly and set out into the cold before they could second guess themselves.

* * *

If Vang0's apartment was frigid, the world outside was glacial. He hissed as the air seemed to scrape at the skin left uncovered by his many layers, and all three of them moved as fast as they could to Burger's van.

Keanu greeted them with a casual "hail and well-met, my dudes" as Burger turned the heating up to full blast. It wasn't a long trip to Dasha's uptown apartment, but the cold was almost unbearable without Burger and Dasha huddled close to him keeping each other warm, and Vang0 was going to stop with that line of thinking immediately. They weren't  _ penguins _ , for god's sake. Just, y'know, platonic friends that had shared a bed the night before for life-saving purposes. Completely different.

The ride went quickly, none of them thinking about pit stops or anything other than the relative heat of Dasha's apartment. At least, Vang0 assumed that's what they were all thinking, even if Dasha was giving him a side-eye from the passenger seat every few seconds.

They pulled into the parking lot ("forsooth, good fellows, we have arrived!") and piled out, and Vang0 shivered as he hurried for the lobby door. He was glad they’d elected not to take the food with them, as the thought of taking more than one trip to get everything upstairs sounded like an actual literal nightmare.

There was a part of Vang0 that felt a frisson of residual panic at that thought, but it was a stupid part, so he pushed it aside easily. They got inside and up the elevator quickly, all sighing in relief as they could feel the mediocre central heating defrosting them, albeit barely. From the corner of his eye he could see Burger massaging the hinge of his jaw, just above the metal, and made a note to get him some pain meds or a heated towel or something. Shit could not be comfortable.

He rubbed his hands together to try to warm them while Dasha pressed her hand to the door to unlock it, before a rush of warm air overtook them as the door swung open gently.

Dasha hung her coat on one of the hooks by the door, motioning for them to do the same with their outerwear. It made an interesting picture, Burger’s vest and Vang0’s only cold-weather hoodie hung next to Dasha’s thick winter trench coat, and he continued on into the apartment before he could overthink why his brain was latching onto that image.

Dasha’s apartment was unlike his studio in every way - spacious where his was cramped, natural light flooding in while he made do with LED bulbs and his monitors. He expected it to make a certain resentment rise in his gut, souring his feelings toward her, but instead he was happy she had a nice thing. She deserved a good place to rest her head, far more than he did.

And, well. He was especially glad she had it right then, cause it was much nicer to weather out the cold in there than in his shitty studio or, god forbid, Burger’s van. Not that there was anything wrong with Burger’s van, but-

His rambling thoughts were cut off by Burger settling himself next to Vang0 on the couch. He didn’t remember sitting down, but he  _ did _ remember that Burger needed something for his jaw. He also knew with complete certainty that Burger would not ask for anything unless the pain was so bad he couldn’t move, so Vang0 quickly shot Dasha a text to grab Burger some pain meds.

Shortly thereafter, Dasha appeared from the hallway leading to the bathroom, pill bottle in hand. “Your jaw must be aching, Burger, take some.”

Burger nodded and smiled, a little strained around the edges, and knocked a few back with a swig of water from the glass she handed to him. Dasha made eye contact with Vang0 over Burger’s head and mouthed a "thanks". Vang0 nodded as he tucked his feet underneath Burger’s thigh, wiggling his toes when Burger laughed and shifted.

Vang0 listened to the sounds of Dasha moving confidently around her apartment, then to the father-off soundtrack of Night City, muffled and quiet, and felt himself begin to doze. It was the first time since the storm started that he felt really, truly warm, and his body took that as a sign to sleep.

In his partially-awake haze he could hear a mumbled conversation between Burger and Dasha about sleeping arrangements. He could hear Dasha start a “well, I mean, if you...” and Burger responded with a “Dash, I’m not gonna turn down...” but the rest of the words were lost to his sluggish half-dreams. He thought of Burger’s smile over breakfast, of Dasha’s sleeping face, of frost-bitten skin he was working to uncover, handful after handful of snow-

He jerked awake some time later. Burger was still next to him, head tilted back at a mildly alarming angle as he snored loudly. Looking around the living room, he found Dasha sitting on the armchair across from them, reading the heavy-looking tome ensconced in her lap, enveloped in a fuzzy throw blanket. She looked right out of an ad about libraries, and for the first time Vang0 wondered why she wasn’t a model. He’d seen some Poser models before, he was sure, and she was definitely tall enough for it.

As if she could feel his eyes, she looked up and caught his gaze. He stopped himself from panicking and flashing his hand signals at her, instead quirking a small smile in her direction. She returned it, before she sat up a little more and quietly asked “where do you want to sleep tonight?”

Vang0 blinked, and before he could figure out how to answer that out of nowhere question, she continued. “I was just thinking, in case the power goes out here, maybe we should do what we did last night. To conserve body heat, of course.”

He thought about it. It made sense, of course, to be prepared in case of an outage, and they wouldn’t freeze if they were together. Before he could say yes, Dasha sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “And, honestly Vang0, last night was nice. Not the hypothermia, of course, but the, y’know, the sleeping together. I’m not a very touchy-feely person, and I know you aren’t either, but humans do kind of need physical contact to survive, and-“

“Okay.” Vang0 took pity on Dasha, cutting off her uncharacteristic rambling. Her face was bright red, and Vang0 knew he was blushing too. Thank god Burger was asleep, otherwise he would be congratulating them for being emotionally honest and available, or something. “If you wanna cuddle for health purposes then I guess I’m down.”

Dasha gave him another genuine smile, and Vang0 was going to have to build up some sort of tolerance if she kept doing that, right? He couldn’t keep getting overwhelmed  _ every _ time she smiled at him, that would be ridiculous. He returned it with a quick uptick of his lips, and she went back to reading.

A little bit later, Burger snored so loud he woke himself up, head jerking up like he'd been shocked. He turned his head to Vang0, blinking owlishly, and Vang0 couldn't help the rush of fondness run through him. "You should probably sleep in like, y'know, a bed? You didn't take that advil just to give yourself a crick in your neck, Burg."

Burger, looking half-asleep again, nodded muzzily. "We goin' to bed?"

Vang0 shook his head. "Yeah, Burger, we're going to bed. C'mon, up." He stood up, pulling ineffectually at Burger's arm. "This only works if you move with me, shit."

Burger got up, leaning a little bit on Vang0 as they stood in front of the (quite comfortable) couch. Vang0 craned his neck to look at Dasha. "Where we gonna-"

"We can just set up in my room," she breezed past them down the hall, leading to the door at the end that Vang0 had specifically never paid attention to. He led Burger down the hall after her, laughing to himself when he realized Burger's eye was mostly closed.

Dasha's bedroom was nice, smaller than Vang0 thought it would be but just as well decorated. Dasha turned down the bed before disappearing to the bathroom to change, and Vang0 was glad he had worn clothes that could work as pajamas already. Burger would probably want to change, because sleeping in non-stretch denim was terrible, but he also looked three seconds away from falling asleep standing up, so Vang0 wasn't sure how well changing would work out for him. "Burger, did you bring sleep pants?"

Burger blinked and nodded, waking up a little bit. "Yeah, s'in my uh, my go bag."

Vang0 nodded and went to grab it while Burger sat down on the edge of the bed, yawning widely.

By the time he got back, Burger had fallen back asleep, back on the bed and feet on the floor. Dasha was still in the bathroom, doing whatever it was she did for her nighttime rituals, so Vang0 shook Burger awake and handed him the bag, nudging him out into the hallway to change. 

Then he was alone in the bedroom, listening to the rustle of fabric from one door and muffled soft jazz from the other, realizing that he should've probably felt more awkward about the whole situation than he did. Really, the only thing he felt was drowsy, so he sat down to wait. He would lay down, but he didn't know what side of the bed Dasha usually slept on, and for once he wanted to not be an asshole on accident.

So he waited, until Burger walked in with his sleep pants on, shirt off. Vang0 could see the hem of the jersey tank sticking out of the little satchel dangling from Burger's hand, and he busied himself with moderating Jumptrash instead of examining the tattoos sprawled across his friend's chest. Burger sat down next to him, close enough for their arms to graze each other as Burger shifted to rest his elbows on his knees.

Together they waited for Dasha in silence. A minute or two later, the bathroom door opened with a rush of sweet-smelling air, and Dasha stepped out. She paused at the sight of them sitting at the foot of the bed, and one side her mouth quirked up in a rueful smirk. "You didn't need to wait, you know."

"I don't know how you usually sleep and I didn't want to be an asshole," Vang0 blurted out all at once.

"I was just enjoying some quiet time with Vang0," said Burger nonchalantly, but his smile held far too much relief to be casual, what Vang0 could see of it.

Dasha snorted and strode toward the bed, surprisingly businesslike. "I don't sleep in any specific formation, but thank you Vang0, that was nice of you." Without further ado, she clambered onto one side of the bed, leaving most of it open. "I know you're both tired, I could hear Burger yawning from the bathroom."

Burger climbed in, leaving a space in the middle for Vang0, who paused for a moment. He looked at his two best friends, looked at the open space between them. Looked at their faces as they watched him back, Dasha's gaze calculating and Burger's far too soft. He looked at both of them and thought, different but equal,  _ oh _ .

Vang0 got into bed.

**Author's Note:**

> The end might seem a bit rushed but honestly? I couldn't figure out something interesting to put after that. Imagine for yourself the configurations these three have for cuddling (I really like the image of Burger in the middle, Dasha and Vang0 linking hands over his chest, idk that shits just cute)


End file.
